Even before today's inauguration, Barack Obama's whistle-stop trip to D.C. brought the best of two worlds to America.

Besides being just a really cool thing to do — complete with speeches by the mellifluous new president to cheering crowds — that trip was truly astonishing.

As a Oklahoma boy who used to ride his bike to the train station to see the 8:55 Oil Flyer pull into Bartlesville in the '50s, I would sometimes sneak into the "colored" waiting room just to try to soak up the inequality.

I did it when I thought no one was looking, and then I raced outside to take a quick sip at the "colored only" water fountain.

It's not a protest if no one else sees it. I didn't face danger. The worst that could have happened was a scolding by the stationmaster. Big deal. A black person who refused to sit in that waiting room and tried to take his or her place in the regular waiting room would have earned much more than a scowl.

Still, that was as much rebellion as I dared, and it wasn't much, because I was overcome by fear — unlike Rosa Parks, who had to fight off mortal fear to risk the consequences. Nearly a century after "emancipation," she dared to keep her bus seat on December 1, 1955.

And now there's a black president? And he took the train to D.C. in a great, old-fashioned whistle-stop tour? That really is the best of two worlds and just as significant a victory for white Americans as it is for blacks.

No more separate waiting rooms. Black Americans aren't being forced to ride out of town on a rail.

A black president is riding into town. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A conjunction that your imagination couldn't have invented.

If you feel like tearing yourself away from today's historic moment, here are some clickables:

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Newsday: 'Experts: Plane that crashed had prior engine problem'

N.Y. Post: 'CONEY IS. PLAN BITES NATHAN'S'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Who Won the War? Israel Touts Overwhelming Victory, Critics on the Right Disagree'

New Yorker: 'A Lonesome Death' (The Wire's David Simon)

N.Y. Times: 'Billionaire Reaches Deal On Funding For Times Co.'

Crain's New York Business: 'Is Cablevision meddling in Newsday's coverage?'

Newsday: 'Newsday, Cablevision execs mum on rumored firings'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Student auctions her virginity, bids reportedly reached $3.7M'

N.Y. Post: 'GOV: I'M CLUELESS ON SENATE CHOICE'

N.Y. Times: 'For the Jobless, Hope and Fear for a New Day'

N.Y. Daily News: 'New York to lead U.S. in job losses'

N.Y. Daily News: 'NY, TX top list of states with strong housing markets'

N.Y. Post: 'TEEN STABBED AT GORY 3-D HORROR MOVIE'

New York: 'Barack Obama, Party of One'

Wall Street Journal: 'Fiat to Take Stake in Chrysler'

Crain's New York Business: 'BAM launching $300M capital campaign'

New Yorker: 'Back Issues'

New York: 'The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady'

Wall Street Journal: 'Gazans Rally Behind Hamas'

N.Y. Times: 'Anxiety Grips Restaurants, New Ones in Particular'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Inauguration means big bucks for prostitutes, coke dealers'

N.Y. Times: 'At the Office, Taking a Break for the Oath of Office'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Suit: Man died after being jailed for parking tickets and missing chemo'

N.Y. Times: 'Bush Commutes 2 Border Agents' Sentences'

Wall Street Journal: 'Deficits Restrict Obama as His Promises Come Due'

New York: 'Christopher Hitchens Blames Torture on Common Americans, Demands "Tongue" From Andrew Sullivan'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Nearly 1/2 of all women and 1/3 of men prefer the Internet to sex'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Hebrew School for All?'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Prominent politician posts picture of herself in shower on Facebook'

'Madoff's Ponzi Case Leaves PETA Cowed'

From the Wall Street Journal's Brody Mullins:

Jewish Daily Forward: 'The Gargantuan Gonif'

Wall Street Journal: 'Cuomo Subpoenas Madoff Investor'

Wall Street Journal: 'Vienna Banker in Spotlight as Madoff Fallout Spreads'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'The Long Arm of Halacha: Jewish Law and the Madoff Scandal'

But more importantly in this country, the Obama victory was a victory for white people.

Outlets ranging from ESPN to the BBC automatically scurried to black people for their reaction to Obama's win. It would be more telling if they focused on the reaction from white people, because that was the real story.

It looks as if Obama did better with white voters than Bill Clinton did. Remember Toni Morrison's "trope of blackness" foolishness in 1998 when she called Clinton "our first black president"?

Claptrap. Not backed up by the facts — like Clinton's embrace of such separate-but-unequal policies as the Glass-Steagall repeal, which heaped more misery on poor blacks and poor whites by worsening the subprime scam.

Ten years later, we really do have a black president, and reporters are besieging black people in Kenya and the NBA for quotes about Obama's victory. What do you think they'll say? Of course they like it.

The fact, though, is that an astounding number of white people not only voted for Obama but actively supported him and cried tears of joy when he won — a landmark in America's racial history and a severe blow against tokenism.

The images from Grant Park of Obama and Joe Biden and their families — white people and black people, young and old — holding hands and hugging were unforgettable. Unforgettable because for the first time on the highest national stage the black man and his kin weren't relegated to supporting roles.

Recall Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 speech, when he and other black people were on the outside of the White House looking in, and he talked about transforming "the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood":

He tried to convince us that civil rights is as much of — or more of — a white issue as a black one.

The current phase of black people mostly relegated in white eyes (and their own) to dreams of success as sports gladiators, actors, and rappers may be ending. Tokens? No longer.

The only tokens you see in New York City subways these days are the faces on the ads plastered in each car. Look at the ads that feature the casts of the season's new TV shows: Each cast is either all black or it consists of four or five whites and a token black and maybe a token person of Asian descent.

Marketers still blitz us with those apartheid-like images. Our pop culture's portrayals of mixed-race couples are mostly white men with black women — The Wire's naked coupling of Lance Reddick's black-cop character atop his white lawyer girlfriend the exception that proves the unwritten rule among marketers to not offend whites.

And now we have a mixed-race president. In his grave, Theodore Bilbo must be growling about "mongrelization."

Segregation and segregationists are cancer cells, and Obama's victory will help flush that infection out of the American mainstream.

Think about another landmark event in America's racial history. The color barrier that Jackie Robinson ran through in 1947 was not a black barrier; it was a white one. And popular Dodger shortstop and team captain Pee Wee Reese's white arm publicly draped over his black teammate's shoulders was arguably more significant than the expected joy felt by other black people at Robinson's feat.

Racism was once commonly called "the Negro problem." In this white-ruled country, it's always been a white problem.

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Turns to Building Leadership Team'

Village Voice: 'Wall Streetwalkers: the Sleazy Lehman Brothers Subsidiary'

Bloomberg: 'ISM Services Index in U.S. Slumped to Record Low'

Election Law (Ohio State University): 'Post-election contests: Four states to watch'

Election Reform Project (Brookings): 'New Jersey's DRE Problem'

Fox News: 'Karl Rove on the Ins and Outs of the Transition from Bush to Obama'

L.A. Times: 'Gay rights backers file 3 lawsuits challenging Prop. 8'

N.Y. Daily News: 'City paid $50G to settle excessive-force suits against same officer in subway sodomy case'

VOA: 'Taiwan President Meets With Senior Mainland Official'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Time's short for GOP to lick wounds'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Barack Obama election victory drives US newspaper sales surge'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Ed Dept. plans 50% slash in new seats for students'

Sin Chew (Malaysia): 'Inheriting The Bush Legacy Of Mess'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Palin goes out with a whimper'
"Vanquished VP nominee Sarah Palin wanted to address the nation on Election Night, but a top Mac aide nixed her request."

Washington Post: 'First-Ever Mapping of Cancer Patient's Genome'

N.Y. Post: 'SEX FIEND STARING AT 165 YRS. IN STIR'

Washington Post: 'In a Heated Race, Obama's Cool Won the Day'

N.Y. Post: 'Bamelot: Plenty Kennedys on Cabinet List'

Anything is possible, Barack Obama said in his awe-inspiring victory speech.

The obverse is that nothing is impossible.

The perverse is that humanity is schizophrenic. Just a few days ago, financial panic was sweeping across the globe. Now it's optimism. Give it a few days, and pessimism will return (although the election-spurred market did stage a historic rally).

Our country was born in a bloody revolution, and the history of the rise of U.S. territory, wealth, and power is written with the blood of black slaves and other people of color.

At various times since then, "uppity" black people have been assassinated. A few of the slaves who weren't uppity were allowed into "the big house" — by the back door.

When I was a kid in Oklahoma, black people still weren't allowed in my town's movie theaters and were consigned to separate but unequal drinking fountains and train station waiting rooms. In my neighborhood, black people still weren't welcomed into white houses except by the back door and then only as menial laborers.

How much of that has really changed? New York is the most segregated place I've lived in. The U.S. is not only still heavily segregated but also beset by rising inequality of wealth and health (see my December 28, 2004 article "The Numbers Beyond the Bling").

With plenty of work still to do in fighting the chronic infection of racism, a black person has nevertheless won title to the big house. No black person is by definition more uppity than Barack Obama.

George W. Bush was merely the target of well-deserved sneers. But you know that there are nut cases in this gun-crazy country who see Obama as a different sort of target.

Amid the euphoria today, one of the few mentions of the fear of Obama's being assassinated comes from Jeremy Vernon, a web developer in Toronto. On AgoraVox, the French journalistic weblog that bills itself as "citizen media," Vernon — an ordinary person, not a self-described pundit — writes:

But Vernon adds this proviso:

On the eve of this election, Barry Saunders of the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer warned, in "Threats to Obama Deserve Serious Attention":

Are people like Saunders and Vernon paranoid? No. The Civil War was fought over civil rights; blacks were commonly lynched until well into the 1940s. Racism drove such talents as native son Richard Wright into European exile.

While thousands of everyday insults persisted, the N-word finally became impolite — Mississippi senator Theodore "The Man" Bilbo was barred from his U.S. Senate seat in 1947 for continuing to spew vitriol in public about the mongrelization of his cracker race.

But the sentiment behind the N-word is more dangerous than the word, and it still bubbles just below the surface. Politicians and others still feed off the ingrained racism of the American culture.

A hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks hadn't even gained the right to vote in many parts of the country.

In the '60s, GOP operative Bill Rehnquist did something worse than spout the N-word; he personally obstructed black people from voting in Phoenix. And he wound up as Chief Justice of the United States.

That wouldn't be — and won't be — the last disenfranchisement of black voters.

Late into the last century, blacks continued to be knocked down for standing up. Martin Luther King Jr., the most uppity black of his generation, was murdered for not only standing up but daring to march.

If reports of the recent assassination plot against Obama are true, then believe that there are other Cowarts out there who are gunning for our president.

So if the Pope has to ride around in a special "popemobile," then so be it for Obama. Build the guy a new and more secure bulletproof vehicle.

The new president, who oozes with charisma (especially now in the first blush of victory, before the reality of a nationwide recession sets in), will want to keep working the crowds.

Memo to Obama: Resist that impulse. Stand behind bulletproof glass. And make sure you assign the most paranoid Secret Service agents to your detail.

In other news, people are still being killed in the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Der Spiegel (Germany): 'GOOD MORNING, MR. PRESIDENT: What Europe Wants from Obama'

BBC: 'Congo eyewitness: "I saw them die" '

BBC: ' "Many dead" in Afghan air strike'
"It is the latest incident involving civilian casualties and underlines the challenge ahead for US President-elect and commander-in-chief Barack Obama."

Wall Street Journal: 'Racial Significance of Vote Looms Large for Many at Polls'

N.Y. Times: 'Russia Warns of New Missile Deployment'

Washington Post: 'Extended Therapy Helps Drug-Addicted Teens'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Rainbow coalition of voters sweeps Obama into office'
"There was plenty of evidence to support the view that Obama's candidacy was racially and nationally unifying."

Economist (U.K.): 'There can be only one' [live-blog one-liners on election night]

Der Spiegel (Germany): 'The Serenity of Barack Obama'

N.Y. Times: 'Strongest Election Day Stock Rally in 24 Years'

Wall Street Journal: 'How the Election Could Affect Iraq-U.S. Negotiations'

L.A. Times: 'High court conservatives favor indecency rule'

Washington Post: 'FCC Expands Use of Airwaves: 'White Space' to Be Opened to Devices Connected to Web'

Guardian (U.K.): 'In Pictures: Presidential Pets'

Slate: 'Where To Dump The Kids: How Nebraska became to child abandonment what Nevada once was to the quickie divorce'

Economist (U.K.): 'Online activism in China: Murder and theft'
"Less heinous when the victims are the police, and Microsoft?"

Slate: 'Election Day's Nine Worst Press Releases'
"La Fresh Travel Towelettes and other products no reporter wants to hear about today."

N.Y. Daily News: 'Two busted in drive-by shoot of judge home'

Passing through the four stages of our grief with lightning speed, Wall Street became Fall Street, then Wail Street, and now Bail Street.

But there's never enough money to satisfy these self-proclaimed victims. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal's Robert Frank reported, in "Wealthy Are Afraid They'll Run Out of Money":

Now it's time for others to look closely. Who will lose the blame game? Setting up today's scheduled grilling of ex-Lehman's ex-CEO Richard Fuld by Henry Waxman's House committee, this morning's Wall Street Journal peers into the what exactly happened at the bankrupt investment bank's HQ on Avenue of the Americas.

We were fooled, yes, but we won't get Fuld again — assuming he even shows up. As of late last week, Waxman was still stonewalled on his September 18 request for Fuld's and Lehman's e-mails and memos. Check out the PDF of Waxman's scathing September 26 letter to Fuld.

But others already have some details on who and what moved in Lehman's bowels.

In "The Two Faces of Lehman's Fall: Private Talks of Raising Capital Belied Firm's Public Optimism," Carrick Mollenkamp, Susanne Craig, Jeffrey McCracken, and Jon Hilsenrath reveal inside dealings and double-talk at the investment bank's HQ.

That story's just a biopsy. There's enough blood and garbage on the Street to keep crime-scene investigators enthused for years. Is there a forensic proctologist in the house?

For one thing, despite this weeper from the WSJ — 'The Lehman Stock Slide Hits Home: Employees Face $10 Billion in Losses' — Fuld and others have stashed cash where the sunshine laws don't shine.

There's a big difference between money on paper and cash in the wallet. Yes, the value of Fuld's stock cache has bottomed out. But Fuld cashed in for more than $50 million during only two days of insider sales of Lehman stock before it began its last precipitous slide in 2007, according to SEC records (see illustration above).

Wonder if Waxman will bring up that profit-taking with Fuld later today. As Reuters noted yesterday:

Don't expect that hearing to be televised, so instead of browsing porn, watch Lehman's jerkoff CEO on the live stream on C-SPAN.

But first . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Reuters: 'British commander says war in Afghanistan cannot be won'

Bloomberg: 'Fuld May Blame Confidence Crisis for Lehman's Fall at Hearing'

Agence France Presse: 'JPMorgan blamed for Lehman collapse in court documents: report'

Wall Street Journal: 'Bailout's Bid to Limit Executive Pay Will Be Tough to Realize'

N.Y. Times: 'Full of Doubts, U.S. Shoppers Cut Spending'

Reuters: 'Spermicide Coke, stale chips research wins Ig Nobels'

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: 'Chairman Waxman Announces Hearings on Financial Meltdown'
Oct. 6: Lehman bankruptcy and AIG bailout, Day One
Oct. 7: Lehman bankruptcy and AIG bailout, Day Two
Oct. 16: Regulation of hedge funds
Oct. 22: Breakdown of credit rating agencies
Oct. 23: Role of federal regulators

Washington Post: 'Artful Dodging Trumps Open Evasion, Studies Show: Palin Criticized After Avoiding Questions'

IOL (South Africa): 'Racism: the elephant in the US polling booth'

L.A. Times: 'Frank talk of Obama and race in Virginia'

BBC: 'Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil'

Wall Street Journal: 'The Lehman Stock Slide Hits Home: Employees Face $10 Billion in Losses'

Haaretz: 'Israeli investment bankers find Wall St. tumble ruins Rosh Hashanah'

N.Y. Times: '11 Die as U.S. Force Raids House in Iraqi City and Man Detonates a Suicide Vest'

IRIN: 'IRAQ: Move to allow doctors to carry guns provokes mixed reaction'

L.A. Times: 'Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator'

BBC: 'Somalia is 'most ignored tragedy'

Washington Post: 'Registration Gains Favor Democrats: Voter Rolls Swelling in Key States'

New York: 'Wall Street, Fall 2009: Things look grim at the moment, but where will we be a year from now? That depends on who’s president.'

BBC: 'Two Black Hawks down in Baghdad'

Caucasian Knot (Moscow): 'Authorities in Ingushetia terrorize the population'

BBC: ' "Milkshake murderer" loses appeal'

N.Y. Times: 'Microwaved Chicken Isn't Necessarily Cooked Chicken'

Wall Street Journal: 'China to Allow Short Selling on Trial Basis'

The Age (Australia): 'OJ Simpson isolated in jail "for his own safety" '

N.Y. Daily News: 'Friends of Mayor Bloomberg make contributions to a third party'

Jurist: 'Fraud charges laid against USAID subcontractor in Afghanistan'

China Digital Times: 'Chinese Cities Wake up to a New Superfood: Yak Milk'

N.Y. Post: 'SUIT SLAMS DONUT-COP "CRULLER-TY" '

N.Y. Daily News: 'Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie seem happy together in NYC'

We crown New York's mayor, but first . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

CNN: 'Race could play big role in election, poll suggests'

McClatchy: 'Poll: Most Americans think U.S. is losing war on terrorism'

New York: 'The Rage of the Previously Rich'

N.Y. Post: 'ATT'Y TAKES A SWIPE AT CAT KILLER'

New Yorker: 'Sarah Palin is my kind of gal'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Historian questions 'Bling Bandit' medal claims'

Jurist: 'Second Circuit rules government must release photos of Iraqi, Afghan prisoners'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Rikers brass axed before big scandal'

New York: 'The Great Shakeout: Good-bye, Masters of the Universe. Hello, Ron Hermance of Paramus, New Jersey'

Bloomberg: 'Oil Falls as Stock Losses Signal Concern Over U.S. Bailout Plan'

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Fears emerge over $700bn rescue'

McClatchy: 'Democrats battling to add restrictions to $700 billion bailout'

N.Y. Post: ' "SHORT" ATTACK MAY SPUR HEDGE FUNDS TO SUE'

McClatchy: 'Can you trust a Wall Street veteran with a Wall Street bailout?'

Financial Times: 'New York to regulate credit derivatives'

Running down the press:

You'd think that after watching The '08 That Ate New York the press would stop bowing and scraping at the feet of billionaires. (See Jon Friedman's "Wall Street Coverage Makes Me Cringe.")

But the Daily News insists on anointing a rich guy who has yet to display one iota of sympathy for, or understanding of, those of us less fortunate to bail us out of this mess created by rich guys.

The paper's City Hall reporter, Erin Einhorn, cranked out a clueless puff piece Monday, "Warren Buffett: Let's hire Mayor Bloomberg to save the economy."

That's one reporter who's sure to get first crack at the City Hall press releases.

Einhorn didn't include even one dissenting voice to puncture this trial balloon. (She did call Henry Paulson — as if he would say anything substantive about it.)

Tucked in up high in her piece is a link to a Daily News editorial ("Run, Mike, Run") pleading with Bloomberg to run for a third term as mayor. The paper reasons that he's done such a great job and has such supposed business acumen that he needs to remain our leader so he can pull us out of this chasm.

If he has such vast business knowledge, why didn't he, as mayor, use his connections to the Wall Street execs to try to halt their march toward oblivion?

Bloomberg made his billions selling financial software to Wall Street — number-crunching software and hardware that gave Merrill Lynch (one of his early partners) and others the tools to create increasingly sophisticated ways of playing the market.

How do you think they figured out how to create such now-discredited instruments as credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations?

If any mayor should be able to spot dangerous trends on Wall Street, it's the guy who made his billions furnishing info to Wall Street during its boom-bust-boom-bust cycles.

So why didn't he? I dunno, ask his chauffeur. Why didn't Bloomberg use his bully pulpit to bully his pals into at least tempering their greed lest it bury themselves (temporarily) and the rest of us (for generations)?

Instead of trying to rein in Wall Street, Bloomberg as mayor has chosen to rein in the city's smallest businessmen: those scruffy street vendors and their ilk.

His performance as the mayor who has been overseer of Wall Street qualifies him to be either the country's or the city's financial savior?

At least Warren Buffett has an excuse for touting Bloomberg: It's true that Buffett is maybe more compassionate than the average rich guy. (See my June 2007 story, "Even a Caveman Can Do the Math," about Buffett attacking greed.) But he wouldn't want to see anyone with a built-in animus toward Wall Street's basic functioning step in as a czar. And Bloomberg definitely has no animus toward Wall Street's profit-taking practices.

The Daily News has no excuse. Oh, wait, the paper does have an excuse: It's owned by rich real estate guy Mort Zuckerman, whose fortune is based on leasing office space to financial wizards in America's big cities.

These huzzahs for Bloomberg remind me of how Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was treated by his acolytes (before his Oregon-based empire dissolved in chaos). The '80s guru, you may recall (and as I witnessed first-hand as a reporter), used to drive his Rolls-Royces slowly through his yuppie followers while they showered flowers, song, and pledges of obedience on the bhagwan ("blessed one").

And we want to do the same with Wall Street's blessed bagman?

History was unmade this weekend in New York City: In the Bronx, the closing of the House That Ruth Built, and in lower Manhattan, the closing of the houses that ruthlessness built.

A double dose of tears for those Wall Street investment bankers in their skyboxes at Yankee Stadium.

A double dose of publicly subsidized bailouts for both the Yankees and the investment banks.

But first . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

MarketWatch: 'End of capitalism as we know it'

Telegraph (U.K.): 'Islamabad hotel blast 'was Pakistan's 9/11'

N.Y. Post: 'COPS: JEW GUYS NEED TO TALK!'

The Register (U.K.): 'Sockpuppeting civil servant Wikifiddles himself'

McClatchy: 'Congress' fiscal conservatives declare free market "dead" '

Jurist: 'Former Special Forces officer wins transgender discrimination lawsuit'

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Taxpayers shoulder trillion-dollar deficit'

N.Y. Times: 'Foreign Banks Hope Bailout Will Be Global'

Wall Street Journal: 'Goldman, Morgan Scrap Wall Street Model, Become Banks in Bid to Ride Out Crisis'

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Obama Targets Wall Street Greed'

Running down the press:

The closing of Yankee Stadium prompted a bevy of retired baseball players to hitch up their belts over their big bellies and weigh in, but the best quote in the past few days came from former Detroit Tigers pitcher Jim Bunning:

McClatchy's James Rosen, in his Friday story "Congress' fiscal conservatives declare free market 'dead,' " called that offering from the flame-throwing right-hander-turned-right-winger-Kentucky-senator a "knockdown pitch."

And that was before the monumental news over the weekend that Wall Street's investment bankers committed harakiri.

How did the press cover the news that Goldman sacks itself?

Sufferin' seppuku! Pretty darn well! And with surprisingly large doses of reality, like this piece from the Financial Times (U.K.): "Taxpayers shoulder trillion-dollar deficit." And this one from the Washington Post: "A Sense of Resentment Amid the 'For Sale' Signs."

If Barack Obama weren't black, he'd now be a shoo-in. After all, John McCain had pushed the GOP's scheme (hare-brained even before Wall Street's meltdown) to privatize Social Security. And the GOP (McCain included) has always preached deregulation. See this Wall Street Journal story for details: "Crisis Draws Attention to McCain Social Security Plan." And then look at this one from the Financial Times (U.K.): "Obama targets Wall Street greed."

If we had a parliamentary democracy, McCain and Obama would be duking it out on the floor of Congress, and not only would the fur fly but there would actually be meat on the killing floor. Instead, we'll have to put up with the lame-ass, tame-ass TV "debates" moderated, massaged, and manipulated by the mainstream media. But the first debate, Friday, ought to be more interesting in light of Wall Street's collapse.

In any case, New York's days as the world's financial capital may be numbered, but ruthlessness hasn't disappeared. Wall Street's self-destruction heralds the true end of U.S. domination of the financial world. That's probably true, but the private-equity folks who control billions of dollars will find other ways to pick at our carcasses.

Last week at least, the private-equity types were licking their chops. In Friday's edition of Private Equity Online, a handmaiden to the vultures smugly wrote:

"Core principle," my dying ass. Drool and slobber are their principles. The newsletter's anonymous author gets down to it:

Some of the private-equity scumbags (my word, not theirs) have already started infiltrating the "normal world" — at the request (insert shudder here) of Hank Paulson's rescue team:

And who knows where the lobbying for further corporate welfare will lead? Check out this morning's Times harbinger, "Big Financiers Start Lobbying for Wider Aid":

So don't start singing "The Internationale" just yet.

Go ahead, though, and download the global lefty anthem here, in any of 80 or so languages, including Billy Bragg's and Pete Seeger's versions. Or Maxx Klaxon's version.

If you can find it, you can even hum along to Tuli Kupferberg's "The New Internationale," which encourages we "prisoners of stagnation" to arise.

Running down the press:

Post: 'HOLY SOW! BAM'S LIPSTICK BUNGLE: TAKES A PIG AND A POKE AT PALIN'

This'll teach Barack Obama to stick a fork in the other white meat:

The U.S. has made at least some progress: Only 60 years ago, he would have been lynched for talking like that about a white gal.

Obama wasn't directly referring to Palin as a pig — he was talking about the GOP's braying about how it stands for "change." But as the L.A. Times notes, his using that simile on the heels of Palin's "lipstick" comment — not to mention the mentioning of the sensitive word "pig" anywhere even near a female candidate — left him wide open.

Palin presents a potentially big problem for the Democrats. With only a short time before the election, how are they going to reveal her as a know-nothing, religious-right wingnut? Etiquette, unfortunately, precludes them from simply laughing at her. Joe Biden is a hard-working pragmatic pol, but his tight little smile and penchant for chattering on and on aren't made for TV. Besides, the Republicans know that any hard attack on Palin will only stir up the anti-intellectual reverse snobbery that gave two full terms to such an uninterested-in-issues moron as George W. Bush.

In some ways, Palin is more dangerous than Bush. Both are proud of not being brainy, and that's clearly no handicap these days — them East Coast big shots aren't going to tell us how to run our country. But she has the zeal of her extremely conservative convictions, like any number of other anti-Darwinists whose presence on the planet actually proves their own point that humans haven't evolved.

Poke the pig at your own peril.

Post: 'RANGEL HAS A BAD CHAIR DAY'

Charlie's provocative musing about reinstating the draft? Now there's a draft afoot to oust him from his powerful job:

Post: 'DAVE AND MIKE PUT TAX HIKES ON TABLE'

The last thing you want to hear is moaning from the state and city governments about their budget problems. What this and every other story doesn't tell you is that there's plenty of money in Manhattan; it's just being diverted, with little or no regulation, into the pockets of the Wall Streeters who churn money from your mortgage payments, bank fees, and pension funds to their own benefit.

Times: 'Across Country, New Challenges to Term Limits'

Good puff for Mike Bloomberg's attempt make himself into NYC's version of Turkmenbashi and other presidents-for-life:

Post: 'BEATLE GAL PAL'S EX IN MAYOR RUN'

Free advertising from David Seifman for a former stooge of the fabled Nassau County GOP machine:

Here's more from the press release that poses as a story:

Great quote!

Blakeman was one of the top officials spawned by the Nassau GOP, which was long controlled by Al D'Amato and responsible for George Pataki's ill reign. Until only a few years ago, the Nassau GOP (headquartered, fittingly, in a former bank building) was the most hilariously crooked local political machine in the country that was still controlling a sizeable population.

That background — not even a sanitized version — isn't in Seifman's story.

Wall Street Journal: 'Lehman Faces Mounting Pressures'

The head may not mean too much, but the story contains a frightening description of the U.S. economy:

Yes, "the worst financial-system crunch in decades."

Forget that Toyota "sales event." If you really want a smokin' deal, bring your checkbook to Lehman's HQ at 745 Seventh Avenue — it's a closeout, clearance, fire sale! As the Financial Times (U.K.) notes this morning:

Any second now, Lehman will be changing its corporate history, which now describes the company as "an innovator in global finance."

Soon to be a major non-player in global finance, Lehman does have a fascinating history. The Lehman boys immigrated from Europe and founded their company in 1850 in Montgomery, Alabama. The company made its fortune trading cotton in that slave-based economy.

Now, 150 years later, the whole cotton-pickin' conglomerate is about to go under.

Jewish Daily Forward: 'First Criminal Charges Filed Against Agriprocessors Owners'

The only NYC paper to cover the hell out of the slaughterhouse jive in Iowa — one of the most interesting immigration stories unfolding anywhere in the U.S. — is the Forward. Nathaniel Popper continues his fine coverage:

The Forward doesn't just cover the Jewish angle of this mess — it also explores the exploitation of slaughterhouse workers. Sticking close to home, the paper wades into the labor practices of another big Kosher processor operating right here in NYC. Popper's September 4 piece, "Workers Speak Out at Nation’s New Leading Kosher Producer," is a detailed feature that starts:

Jewish Daily Forward: 'With White House at Stake, Ultra-Orthodox Work To Get Out the Vote — in Israel'

More praise for the Forward, which is the only NYC paper to consistently cover (and without doses of political correctness) right-wing Jews' political maneuvering. This one's about the black hats — the Haredi, the most ultra-Orthodox of Orthodox Jews — seeing McCain as the guy with the white hat:

Imagine the consternation in the U.S. press if some overseas imam controlling mosques over there and in the U.S. injected himself into our presidential campaign. Anyway, Nathan Jeffay's story gets past the bullshit and right to the heart of matters:

Times: 'A New Voice From Within'

Michael Kimmelman's lede strikes just the right note of condescension:

McClatchy: 'Federal deficit soars, but McCain, Obama offer no answers'

Somehow managing to provide news with interpretation and also flaying both presidential candidates, David Lightman and Kevin G. Hall hold the smears and hold the schmears. Instead they write:

McClatchy: 'Low levels of Arctic sea ice signal global warming's advance'

One great thing about global warming: We don't have to worry about destroying the Arctic ice by drilling into it because it's already gone. Renee Schoof explains:

Stepping back from the hoopla, the planet wonders, "Is he out of his mind?"

It doesn't really matter what the world's lefty sites say about Sarah Palin, unless any of them have some real meat to put on the table.

It does matter, on the other hand, what the conservative, mainstream outlets say if they're the news sources for the people with money who control the planet.

Take, among others, the Economist, the U.K.-based sober magazine that influences the financial world's policy-makers. You'll see that much of the world is practically sneering at John McCain's choice of a Tonya Harding to bust the Democrats' kneecaps.

For a good round-up, see the Financial Times piece "Palin fascinates European media," in which the British counterpart of the Wall Street Journal points out the depth of Palin coverage in France:

The timid U.S. mainstream press has of course generally downplayed Palin's religious-right credentials as a key to her being chosen.

The Economist focuses not on Palin but on what McCain's choice of Palin says about him. Under the headline "The woman from nowhere: John McCain's choice of running-mate raises serious questions about his judgment," the mag says:

The piece is well worth reading in its entirety — even my lengthy excerpts from it shouldn't stop you — because the Economist's writers clearly aren't brain-dead from having watched hour after hour of the paralyzing spinster vs. spinster drivel emanating from CNN or Fox News. The opinion piece/analysis points out that Palin "was greeted like the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan by the delegates, furious at her mauling at the hands of the 'liberal media,' " but then throws in a heavy dose of reality:

OK, you'll say, but that's not looking at her from the perspective of the GOP. But the Economist does:

Can't resist one more clump from the Economist, because it dares to bring George W. Bush into the conversation:

In fact, McCain is usually much more calculating and politically aware than this — or at least I thought so, based on my having covered him off and on for the past 20 years, since his early days as a new Arizona congressman. Nobody can accuse him of being a dumbass, like Bush.

But this episode is only confirmation that McCain's choice of a religious-right, inexperienced woman is little more than a race-based act of desperation. The religious right, after all, has long detested McCain. The Palin move may well win over those voters. But relatively few moderate women, either Republicans or Democrats and especially those who are pro-choice, are likely to fall for this.

White men, however, might still feel threatened enough by the specter of a black man as president that they'll vote for this lightweight hockey mommy.

In a world where a no-name Alaskan could suddenly become an aging heartbeat from the U.S. presidency, as Don LaFontaine might have intoned it if he hadn't died before I could hire him, the stunning desperation of that very move got glossed over by 99 percent of the U.S. media.

Matt Scully's speech at the Republican National Convention — recited by Sarah Palin last night — received the imprimatur from the New York Times: "Palin Assails Critics and Electrifies Party."

Like an ER team using the paddles to jump-start a dead patient.

As if they were reporting on the emperor's new clothes, Elizabeth Bumiller and Michael Cooper pronounced the Republican ticket healthy:

What a shock that the delegates said yes.

Of course, Times reporters didn't have to play into the McCain campaign's hands by describing him that way. Closer to the truth is that McCain is an admiral's son who married an Arizona liquor magnate's daughter, carpetbagged into Congress, and built his career by sucking up to the rich and powerful, including financiopath S&L schnook Charles Keating and newspaper publisher/phony war hero Darrow "Duke" Tully.

They got Palin right, however. She really is a hockey mom — even the father of her accidental grandchild is a high-school kid who plays hockey with his buddies.

Is she really a good choice for the ticket? I don't know. Alaska.

A look-see at how the rest of the press handled the GOP's desperate move to offer a Snow White alternative to the Democrats' Negro candidate:

• The Wall Street Journal was more rational, steering clear of the kind of glib labeling used by the likes of the Times and me. The lede by Jerry Seib and Laura Meckler:

• Perhaps influenced by Fashion Week, the big event going on this week in New York City, our hometown Post picked a glamor image and ran with it:

SHE'S A 'PIT BULL WITH LIPSTICK': PALIN WOWS 'EM BY POUNDING DC SNOBS

Michael Vick's pit bulls also had red mouths, but in their case it was blood. Anyway, here's Brendan Scott and Chuck Bennett's lede:

Not the kind of tongue-lashing Larry Craig — the last unknown Republican from the West to make a splash in Minnesota — was prepared to give in that airport bathroom stall, but at least Palin got it done.

(By the way, she didn't "prove her chops." She tried to prove her chops. That's why the WSJ's "countered" is more accurate.)

• The Daily News promo'd its coverage nicely with "Hockey mom drops gloves," but its lede slipped and fell:

This is a theme with Republican pols. Rudy Giuliani in drag was also a pit bull with lipstick.

• McClatchy noted that Palin "defined herself as someone irritated with the news media and Washington."

Well, who isn't?

• Nice job by Newsday's Craig Gordon:

But so what. For all the talk about the feistiness of Palin's speech, you have to remember that the words came from former George W. Bush speechwriter Scully, who's been spraying similar vitriol at liberals since he was an Arizona college student harassing professors two decades ago.

• A surprisingly humdrum lede by the Washington Post:

(Yes, a black man in America is accused of being "elitist," and it's reported with a straight face.)

But the WashPost deserves kudos for Dan Balz's front-page story yesterday that detailed the GOP's desperation and shoddy vetting of Palin:

• Interesting blog analysis from the BBC's U.S. guy Justin Webb:

Webb doesn't point this out, but it's pretty funny that Giuliani has the nerve to talk about what the GOP calls "family values." This is the same mayor who famously shucked his wife and shunted his kids to the sidelines. (See my colleague Wayne Barrett's 2007 piece "Public Displays of Disaffection.")

• The Times (U.K.) had the guts to use the most accurate label for Palin:

• The most clever review of last night's sitcom pilot comes from Der Spiegel. The German outlet's headline and typically (in the foreign press) long subhed:

Gabor Steingart's story is somewhat snooty, but at least it's original, so you can forgive him the factual boo-boo of confusing Alaska with Arizona. (How's a German copy editor going to catch that mistake unless he or she grew up reading Karl May's novels?) Quoting at length from Steingart:

We'll see about that, but congratulations to Steingart for working in a mention of Cheney, who has been our de facto president for the past eight years.

More to the current point, it probably takes a furriner like Steingart to observe our moralistic brand of politics at a safe remove:

Steingart can get away with using "schadenfreude" in a daily news story. He is German, after all. And the Palin melodrama does have its enjoyable moments.

Running down the press:

Forty-five years after Martin Luther King Jr. revealed his dream, Barack Obama becomes king for a day.

Now that is change.

Crowned by the Democratic Party, Obama spoke last night of the "promise" of America. Wearing a crown of thorns, King said way back in 1963 (full text):

And last night in Denver those little black children and little white children, now adults, did hold hands to cheer a black man's nomination for president. And they weren't just from Alabama.

Remarkable.

Too bad the daily press hasn't changed. As political campaigns get more and more clever, the big papers don't.

Here's a small, but telling, example from this morning's New York Times lead story. It reminds me that I have a dream that Adam Nagourney will no longer cover political campaigns. His co-bylined story notes:

The GOP campaign strategy worked, thanks to the Times.

Very gracious of McCain to release that TV ad, notwithstanding his surprisingly insincere visage and the soppy background music. A sound move, too, because at the same time McCain gets the paper of broken record to rip Obama through the device of quoting some minion named Tucker Bounds.

What you do as a journalist — what most journalists don't do — is simply not directly quote campaign flacks when they're just flacking you. What they say on the record is almost always not news; it's advertising.

Now, if McCain were to say what Bounds said, that's a quote you should use, juxtaposing it with the TV ad.

But the McCain campaign no doubt knew that the Times, in its establishment way, would have no qualms letting McCain speak out of one side of the mouth and one of his flacks speak out of the other. Through some mistaken notion of journalistic "balance," that allowed McCain to come off as 100 percent gracious.

My own policy as a reporter was to not quote spokesmen or flacks when they're not making news and to avoid using their names in those cases so that they don't get mistaken as people who count.

Don't let the surrogates birth the pols' ugly babies. If the candidate wants to say something like what Bounds said, quote him or her. Otherwise, don't use it. You're just playing into the campaigns' hands. You're writing your story for them, for your sources' interests, not for your readers or their interests.

Stepping down from the soapbox, I'll note that the other major part of Nagourney's unintentional flackery on behalf of the McCain campaign was this line of analysis:

Race has had nothing to do with the "tightening," right? In the world of reporters' egos, it's the "slashing attacks" they report that are making a difference.

We're still waiting for McCain to reveal his veep choice.

Will it be a woman? Will it be a black woman? Will it be Condi Rice? No.

Will it be Tim Pawlenty? The Democrats should hope so.

Will it be Dick Cheney? Certainly not, but I hope so. I'm just being selfish because we're not quite finished slapping him upside the head for the troubles he's brought down on our heads.

Daily News: ' "Bling Bandit" is ex-NYPD detective; allegedly knocked off 9 area banks'

Helluva yarn on its face, but the paper fell on its face. The lede:

Fascinating story. And the best copout for crime that we've heard in a while:

Liver and onions.

But don't let the facts stand in the way of a good excuse. The Post's version of Kelson's probable motivation for his alleged crime spree is more believable:

Post: 'STAR IN SEX REHAB'

The paper's best headline writers must be on vacation. This juicy little wire story about David Duchovny's alleged sex addiction merited at least something referring to "The Sex Files."

The Daily News's more lengthy story at least tried to do something with the lede:

On the other hand, the News didn't have provide much evidence that Duchovny's supposed addiction was in any way destructive:

Oh, so the guy had steamy sex with his wife. He couldn't take his hands off the mother of his children. That must really be tearing apart his marriage and his life.

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Frames Campaign As Vote on Economy, Bush'

Yes, a boring headline. But if you want to get past last night's hype, a very solid story co-authored by veteran sober reporter Jerry Seib (whose embryonic journalism work I used to grade when I was a grad assistant for the late, great John Bremner at the University of Kansas). Seib's lede graf:

Then two strong grafs smoothly quoting Obama, followed by this, which I'll quote at length because, although it's not particularly new, it cuts through the hype, as I noted, and sums up things — unlike Nagourney's lame piece mentioned above — in vivid black and white:

I've not been a big fan of Seib's column-writing in recent years, but as a news reporter, he's excellent. You get an A from me, Jerry, but more importantly, even the tough Bremner would have also given you high marks.

On the other hand, Bremner would pick up the phone and scold me. That's what he used to do, and I miss it.

Times: 'Putin Suggests U.S. Provocation in Georgia Clash'

Clifford J. Levy produces an interesting angle of the Caucasoid freakoid mess, but it's crippled by a ponderous lede:

What's worse is that this stiffly written piece doesn't even name the "candidate" — as if we didn't know — until the fifth graf:

Loosen up, Cliff. But good job of getting Putin's middle initial in the story.